Archives: Data Breaches

Over the past several months, many states, including Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington, have passed significant amendments to their state data breach notification laws. Currently, most state data breach notification laws only require notification of residents (and possibly state regulators or others) following a “breach” of personally identifiable information (“PII”), which is often defined … Continue Reading

On April 19, 2019, China’s Ministry of Public Security (“MPS”) released the final version of its Guideline for Internet Personal Information Security Protection (互联网个人信息安全保护指南) (the “Guideline”). A previous version of the Guideline was released for public comments on November 30, 2018. Under China’s Cybersecurity Law (the “CSL”), MPS is the key regulator tasked with protecting … Continue Reading

The Governor of Massachusetts recently signed House Bill No. 4806 into law, which will amend certain provisions of the state’s data breach notification law. In addition to changing the information that must be included in notifications to regulators and individuals, the amendments will also require entities to provide eighteen months of free credit monitoring services … Continue Reading

Recent years have seen significant amounts of legislative activity related to state data breach notification laws, and 2018 was no exception. Not only did South Dakota and Alabama enact new data breach notification laws in 2018, becoming the last of 50 U.S. states to enact such laws, but other states also enacted changes to existing … Continue Reading

As many data breach litigation cases have demonstrated over recent years, the question of a plaintiff’s standing can be quite important to the outcome of each case. While the Supreme Court has addressed standing issues in several cases with potential applicability in the data breach litigation context, most recently in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins and … Continue Reading

Canada’s new data breach law, The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”), took effect on November 1. Official guidance released by the country’s Privacy Commissioner explains a few of the law’s key provisions that will affect organizations, specifically, breach reporting and notification obligations, their triggers, and record retention. Reporting & Notification Obligations Under the … Continue Reading

On 25 May 2018, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect. The GDPR establishes some of the most robust privacy requirements globally and is likely to be a model followed by other jurisdictions. Airlines are uniquely affected by the GDPR with passenger data being at the heart of their business and international … Continue Reading

On July 27, 2018, the Government of India’s Committee of Experts released a draft Protection of Personal Data Bill. Together with an accompanying report, the draft bill moves India one step closer towards enacting a comprehensive data protection regime. Last year, the Supreme Court of India issued a landmark decision holding that privacy is a … Continue Reading

On June 28, 2018, California enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”), which is aimed at strengthening consumer privacy rights and data security protections. The CCPA takes effect on January 1, 2020 and is considered the most stringent privacy law in the country. The CCPA applies to for-profit entities that conduct business in … Continue Reading

This spring has seen significant legislative activity with regards to state data breach notification laws, ranging from new laws in Alabama and South Dakota to amendments to existing laws in Oregon, Arizona, and elsewhere. Continuing this trend, three states recently passed legislation to amend their existing data breach notification laws. Legislation recently passed in Colorado … Continue Reading

On April 24, 2018, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Kennedy (R-LA) introduced the Social Media Privacy and Consumer Rights Act of 2018. The bill aims to protect consumers’ online data by increasing the transparency of data collection and tracking practices, and requiring companies to notify consumers of a privacy violation within 72 hours. “Our … Continue Reading

[This article was originally published in Law360] Last week, South Dakota became the 49th U.S. state to enact a data breach notification law with the passage of S.B. 62, which sets forth requirements for notifying state residents, the state attorney general, and major consumer reporting agencies in the event of a breach. The law, which … Continue Reading

On December 1, 2017, the High Court of England and Wales found the fourth-largest supermarket chain in the UK, Wm Morrisons (“Morrisons”), vicariously liable for a data breach caused by the intentional criminal actions of one of its employees, namely the leaking of payroll information online. The breach affected almost 100,000 Morrisons employees and the … Continue Reading

In a speech delivered at the United States Naval Academy on October 10, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein waded into the public debate between data privacy and law enforcement interests. As part of a discussion moderated by former Covington cybersecurity attorney Jeff Kosseff, Rosenstein’s remarks discussed cyber issues facing law enforcement with a particular focus … Continue Reading

In the immediate aftermath of discovering a cybersecurity incident, companies often face many questions and few answers amidst a frenzy of activity. What happened? What should we do now? What legal risks does the company face, and how should it protect against them? In this fast-paced environment, it can be difficult to coordinate the activity … Continue Reading

Delaware Gov. John Carney has signed into law a bill that will impose more stringent obligations for notifying affected Delaware residents in the event of a data breach, in addition to establishing requirements for Delaware businesses to maintain “reasonable” data security practices. In addition to expanding the types of information that would require notification of … Continue Reading

Customers’ allegations that they face a substantial risk of identity theft as a result of a 2014 data breach are sufficiently plausible to allow their suit against health insurer CareFirst to proceed, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held in an August 1 decision. CareFirst discovered in April 2015 — and announced … Continue Reading

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) released a voluntary framework for organizations to use in the development of a formal program to receive reports of network, software, and system vulnerabilities, and to disclose vulnerabilities identified in other organizations’ environments. This framework provides private entities a series of steps to establish a formal program … Continue Reading

Among the many issues that can give rise to the initial uncertainty of responding to a significant cybersecurity incident is a failure by incident response team members to understand the perspectives and priorities of other stakeholders. But this complicating factor can readily be mitigated through cross-functional education and relationship building before an incident occurs. In … Continue Reading

Last week, New Mexico and Tennessee both passed legislation updating each state’s requirements for notifying residents following a data breach. New Mexico’s new law, H.B. 15, makes it the 48th U.S. state to enact a state data breach notification law, leaving Alabama and South Dakota as the only states that have not enacted similar laws. … Continue Reading

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced this week that there were a record number of data breach notices in New York in 2016, with nearly 1,300 reported data breaches exposing the personal records of 1.6 million New Yorkers. These numbers represented a 60 percent year-over-year increase in the number of data breaches reported, … Continue Reading

Last week, the Office of Management and Budget issued an updated breach response policy for federal agencies, replacing a policy last updated in 2007. The policy, set forth in memorandum M-17-12, provides minimum standards for federal agencies in preparing for and responding to breaches of personally identifiable information (PII). In addition to setting forth requirements … Continue Reading

On Monday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas ruled that the named plaintiff for a putative class of CareCentrix employees whose personal information was compromised had alleged enough harm for standing under Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins. The case is Hapka v. CareCentrix, Inc. In early 2016, a phishing attack compromised defendant CareCentrix’s systems, … Continue Reading

About the Covington Data Privacy and Cybersecurity group

Repeatedly ranked as having one of the best privacy practices in the world, Covington combines exceptional substantive expertise with an unrivaled understanding of the IT industry, and of e-commerce and digital media business models in particular. Read More